‘Lady Pirates’
Moving back to Bluffton, Ohio, my journalism career came “full circle.” (Who would have thought?) When I was a freshman at Bluffton College here, I wrote sports articles for the campus newspaper. After moving back, the editor of the Bluffton News in town approached me about writing the girls varsity basketball game stories. Alas, not because of my spectacular sports writing ability, but rather because he knew my daughter was on the team, I’d probably be going to most of the games and the girls basketball sportswriter had quit.
I agreed to it. As long as I could write the stories anonymously (those sports parents can get pretty nuts) and if I could write the stories with, oh, some ‘literary license.’ He said that would be fine because, apparently, there wasn’t a lot of writers lining up for this.
As a result, what the Bluffton News got was sort of a: ‘Dave Berry covers girl’s basketball…’
My sports writing has taken on various dimensions over the years. The following could be considered sort of a 'George Plimpton in the City' piece about a brand of football perhaps we should all be playing at this point in our society. This chapter comes from a book I wrote titled America’s Best Urban Neighborhood.
I'm the only girl's high school basketball writer East of the Mississippi, to incorporate rhyming poetry in my stories. (See story below.)
A peice for Liz's magazine.
